The Legends of Charles G. Leland’s Aradia
Leland’s interest in magic and folklore led him to northern Italy in search of remnants of “the old religion” of witchcraft.
How White Women Organized Against Lynching
In the 1930s, a coalition southern white women fought against lynching, disproving the idea that extrajudicial killings were intended to protect them.
Portrait of a Nazi Bigamist
Otto M was a university researcher who was both an enthusiastic Nazi and a bigamist, openly married to two women.
When Does Political Resistance Work?
The effectiveness of popular movements for social change depends on both underlying political conditions and the strategies adopted by activists.
Iran: Creativity in the Aftermath of Uprising
Pamela Karimi’s new book examines how Iran’s “Women, Art, Freedom” protest movement has influenced the country’s artists and their work.
Recruiting Warrior Queens for the Rani of Jhansi Regiment
Why did so many plantation workers in Burma, Malaya, and Singapore rush to join the all-woman Rani of Jhansi regiment of the Indian National Army?
Lesbians and the Lavender Scare
Lesbian relationships among government workers were seen as a threat to national security in the 1950s. But what constituted a lesbian relationship was an open question.
A Short Course in Justice: the Freedmen’s Bureau Courts
Freedmen’s Bureau courts provided a forum for newly emancipated people in the “uncertain legal landscape” of the defeated Confederacy.
Lowell’s Forgotten House Mothers
As vital to the success of industrial New England as the mill girls who toiled in the factories were the women who oversaw their lodging.
How to be a Modern Autocrat
In the twenty-first century, dictators are less likely than their predecessors to use violence to suppress dissent, cultivating instead “informational autocracies.”